After reading Mike Trainer's post about working nerve, I am curisous to clarify my doubts :

Case #1 :
A 45 days old male rottie puppy was taking his food in a bowl. From behind, headlight of a motorcycle fell on him. He immediately stopped taking food & charged towards the light courageously. This was video recorded & everyone appreciated his courage. This puppy has weak nerve or strong nerve?

Case #2:
6 months old female rottie puppy has very high prey drive, never barks at people,milkman,postman. But she shows fear & barks (hair bristle) when seeing any light object swings in the air (Car cover swings in the air, dry banana leaves on the road swings in air).
What kind of nerve this dog has???

Case #1 :
A 45 days old male rottie puppy was taking his food in a bowl. From behind, headlight of a motorcycle fell on him. He immediately stopped taking food & charged towards the light courageously. This was video recorded & everyone appreciated his courage. This puppy has weak nerve or strong nerve?

Shows zero regards nerve but does show a lot regards defensiveness and something to watch later on. Need far more details to know what made up the behavior but at 6 1/2 weeks old this is extreme behavior and to see if it was truly couragous I would have to see it. In my time no matter how strong a dog turned out to be I have never seen nor heard of such a thing and I'd love to see such a video.

Case #2:
6 months old female rottie puppy has very high prey drive, never barks at people,milkman,postman. But she shows fear & barks (hair bristle) when seeing any light object swings in the air (Car cover swings in the air, dry banana leaves on the road swings in air).
What kind of nerve this dog has???

Again not enough detail to truly tell regards nerve but on details given nerve sounds alright but have found something that causes perception of threat in dog. All dogs have such an object.

To truly see what type of nerve a dog/pup has you need more than one stimulus and more than one incident. Nerve is an overall ability to process and handle stress and a dogs recoverly from stress. Very dog can have one thing that scares them but when overall they are quick to react with aggression/avoidance to many objects then they are weak of nerve. Also if the dog shows a highly aroused reaction with very strong typography (pilo erection, short mouth etc) to low level stimulus then again it is weak. for the newby to aggression it often looks like much of a muchness but in real terms two dogs can be both aggressive but due to typography differences show they are dealing with it in totally different ways. One can be on the edge and have zero chance of commiting to a conflict, the other is just waiting to get his/her chance to get into combat. The first is low in nerve, the second in all likelyhood is very strong yet both are quick to trigger to aggression.

As for puppy selection I want to see little or no reaction to a large number of potentially stressful stimuli ad if there is a reaction I want extremely quick recovery. I want to see a strong grip in a pup (even when being chosen as a pup, I look for the same grip in a cavalier or labrador) as it shows good breain mechanism and mobility. I want to see it across the whole litter, not simply one or two pups and others that are fearful. If I get more than one fearful pup I stay away from the whole litter.

Nerve is a genetic thing that you cannot truly alter. You can either get the most out of the dog by early development work, confidence building exercises or you can gain less than the dogs real potential but you cannot alter the genetics of the dog anymore than you can make a black dog white. You can dye it but it's genes are it's genes and it will come back to and breed black. You can make a dog look more than what it is to the uneducated through training but from a work point of view you will not hide what the dog is from an educated eye nor from an apponant who means to do you harm. If the dog doesn't have it then it does have it and training won't make it so. Sure you can geta dog who has the correct genes to be much improved through training (make it reach it's potential) but if the dog doesn't have the nerve for such high level work you will be found out soon enough in a real life scenario.

And just on that last point what is required from a dog genetically in a real life situation is so much more than most people realise.

I never knew this nerve concept. I was thinking those dogs who are barking are good protection dogs. But now only I come to know they will run away when facing danger.

Everytime I visit my sister's house, I try to enter her house without making any sound. But her GSD will wake up in the night any time & bark. I thought she is a good protection dog. But for crackers & thunderstorm, she will hide under the chair.

Now, I am very curious to test my 6 months old rottie puppy :

- She never barks
- Till now she never shown any aggression (Only one time she growled when my friend entered into my house speedily).
- An elephant came nearby my dog, she doesn't bark or afraid
- She has no fear for crackers, thunderstorm
- She stands steady & calm eventhough 4 ~ 5 stray dogs are charging
- Has high prey drive
- Has high food drive
- But when approaching any light objects swinging in the air she approaches with cautiousness.

How can I test her threshold & nerve? What kind of methods/stimulus you use to test the nerve of a dog?

At this stage let her just go along. It sounds like her nerve is good from what you have written but at this stage maturity (or a lack of) may confuse things slightly. Not to say that a dog that shows a lot of fear behavior will suddenly snap out of it as it matures but a dog that shows a slight reaction at this age may not as he/she gets more mature so any "test" I give you may not be accurate. As she grows you will be able to know more what she is like. In real terms the best test of nerve is day to day life, especially in a high stimuli environment like Madras. If she deal with this life style with little concern then she is pretty sound. A to whether she will be any good as a protection dog is something else all together, there is a lot more to this than nerve.

An elephant came nearby my dog, she doesn't bark or afraid I love this. There are few locations in the world that this could occur. When I was in Bangalore we came out of our hotel room (Taj West End) and right out front was an Elephant dressed up for a wedding that was too occur at the hotel. It was fantastic. Not a normal occurance in Australia.

Nerve is a genetic thing that you cannot truly alter. You can either get the most out of the dog by early development work, confidence building exercises or you can gain less than the dogs real potential but you cannot alter the genetics of the dog anymore than you can make a black dog white. You can dye it but it's genes are it's genes and it will come back to and breed black. You can make a dog look more than what it is to the uneducated through training but from a work point of view you will not hide what the dog is from an educated eye nor from an apponant who means to do you harm. If the dog doesn't have it then it does have it and training won't make it so. Sure you can geta dog who has the correct genes to be much improved through training (make it reach it's potential) but if the dog doesn't have the nerve for such high level work you will be found out soon enough in a real life scenario.

And just on that last point what is required from a dog genetically in a real life situation is so much more than most people realise.

Mick.

Would speak more about the confidence building excercises? as a novice I am not quite sure how you would rate VinDisel's nerve. But if there is any way to compensate (or compliment) for his genetics, I want to give a try.

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